How Personality Affects Health - Case Study Example

Personality and Health Many complex and interacting factors can be identified that affect our health, aging process and ultimate length of life. Family heritage can pass on inherited health conditions and provide a genetically built-in aging clock on the cellular level. Lifestyles play a role as well. Other factors, such as a generally positive state of mind, the perception of personal happiness and overall personality, have also been shown to affect health and longevity. This discussion will focus on how a person’s personality is connected with health and aging. How personality affects health Many experts agree that much of a person’s personality is developed during childhood. A study relating personality and health calculated that traits in childhood are indicative of future health and longevity. A study (Friedman 1993) conducted on statistical survival analyses of longevity in 1,178 males and females concluded that a child’s personality is related to continued existence decades into the future and illuminates likely and unlikely pathways linking personality to health. In recognition of this observation, much of the diagnoses for diseases in traditional Chinese medicine are closely tied to a patients personality. For a preliminary diagnosis, traditional Chinese doctors will first examine a patient’s general outlook on life. Modern medical techniques rely less on characterizing personality traits as a possible cause for ailments, often outright refuting any connection, as does Richard Sloan, MD, a psychiatrist at the New York State Psychiatric Institute and director of the Behavioral Medicine Program at Columbia University Medical Center. Despite the modern medical official position on personality causing illness, it is widely accepted even in the modern profession that personality does have an affect on health concerns such as heart disease. Not surprisingly, the aggressive, hostile personalities are more prone to experience adverse heart conditions than are more docile types. What is not clear is if, given the same sets of circumstances, a negative personality leads to worsening health or if a worsening heart condition has a negative affect on the personality, the chicken and the egg argument. “It could turn out that a single outside factor is causing both the hostile personality and the cardiac problems. It’s also possible that the factors which shape our personality are impacting our body chemistry in a way that influences our risk of heart disease,” said Cardiologist Dan Fisher, MD, assistant professor at NYU School of Medicine in New York City (Bouchez 2005 p. 1). The lack of patience is the personality trait that is most seen to foster hostility. Studies have confirmed that both men and women who displayed high levels of impatience and consistently placed time limitations on their activities are more likely to develop high blood pressure and are at greater risk for heart disease. A person experiencing depression is also at greater risk for heart disease. “Perhaps the strongest evidence we have in terms of personality and physical illness is the relationship between depression and heart disease; there’s overwhelming evidence to show that depression is a risk factor,” said Sloan (Bouchez 2005 p. 2). While some speculate that it is the precarious behavioral activities connected with clinical depression that lead to heart disease, others speculate that the abnormal brain chemistry involved in depression itself may negatively influence health. “Again, it’s possible that some biochemical or environmental inflammatory factor may be at work here, increasing both the risk of heart disease and depression simultaneously” (Fisher quoted in Bouchez 2005 p. 2). No existing evidence exists that substantiates a link between diseases such as cancer to destructive personality traits, although previous studies have postulated this theory. Today we know that the correlation no longer seems to be noteworthy. However, many experts agree that affliction with disease can influence personality in a positive way. “Cancer shapes your personality; it telescopes a great deal of life processing,” said Julia Smith, MD, PhD, director of the Breast Cancer Screening and Prevention Program, at the NYU Cancer Institute in New York City. “You develop a wisdom and a perspective on life that you just don’t have when you are young” (Bouchez 2005 p. 3). When faced with mortality, those afflicted with life threatening realities tend to develop a more introspective outlook on life that functions to pacify personality. These positive alterations of personality often contribute to recovery efforts. Not all patients react in a positive way to bad news. All, of course, are saddened, but those that become deeply depressed exacerbate the situation as negative moods tend to accelerate the condition. Many studies have demonstrated that high blood pressure increases under stressful conditions and can cause irreparable health damage under long term exposure. Methods that lower blood pressure can reduce your risk of heart disease and stroke. “In a study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association in April 2005, doctors found that both men and women who participated in exercise and stress reduction programs were able to significantly improve their cardiovascular risk profiles” (Bouchez 2005 p. 4). In addition to heart health problems, stress, associated with a generally negative personality, negatively affects many major health issues. Women who are depressed are more likely to experience reproductive-related problems. Research by the University of San Diego in the journal Fertility and Sterility in 2004 found that “Women who scored high on a test measuring emotional distress had 20 per cent fewer eggs available for fertilization when compared with less stressed women” (Bouchez 2005 p. 4). This study concluded that those women who strived to lower their stress levels would not only improve their overall health, which directly affects their baby’s health, but also increased their chances for conception (Bouchez 2005 p. 4). More than simply helping people feel better, experts say having a positive, optimistic personality may actually help us live longer. In a study published in the Archives of General Psychiatry, researchers found that older citizens who described themselves as having an optimistic view of life also had a decreased risk of heart disease or death from any cause when compared with pessimistic people over a 10-year period. “While maintaining a positive attitude may not, in and of itself, combat disease, or even prevent disease, what it can do is impact the quality of your life. In doing so, that could help you avoid some diseases and make a huge difference in how well you cope if and when you do get sick” (Bouchez 2005 p. 5). How personality affects aging Data composed on 1,285 people, born from 1904 to1915, was analyzed over a period from 1930 until the date of their death, revealing that a ‘permanency of mood’ in a child’s personality predicted increased longevity. It was concluded that a small number of childhood factors can significantly predict mortality across the life span (Schwartz 1995). An increasing amount of empirical evidence advocates the idea that contented people live longer. Recent studies have correlated long life with optimism, with positive thinking, and with a lack of hostility, anxiety and depression. “It is definitely the case that certain people who are psychologically healthier live longer, but the explanations are usually complicated” said Dr. Howard S. Friedman of the University of California at Riverside (Schwartz 1995). A study reviewing the possible link between personality and longevity was conducted amongst a collection of 660 people over 50 years of age in Oxford, Ohio. These subjects had answered questions in 1975 having to do with their attitudes regarding aging and other questions designed to ascertain their overall disposition and personality. Researchers re-interviewed those participants who were still living in 1998 and noted in what year the others had died. The study found that those who thought of aging in an optimistic way lived, on average, 7.5 years longer than those who took a bleaker view. The researchers also concluded by their findings that both lower blood pressure and reduced cholesterol lengthened life by about four years. By contrast, those participants who exercised, didn’t smoke and maintained a proper weight only added only one to three extra years. Clearly, by this evidence, attitudes based on general personality affect longevity as much or more than do many other aspects of living. The researchers felt all of the above aspects were important to longevity, but were surprised by the degree to which personality seemed to weigh in on the issue. Overall personality and viewpoints regarding living were highly correlated with long life, even after statistically controlling such distinctiveness. Additional studies have shown that people of all cultures are more likely to die after holidays, a statistic that suggests people could will themselves to live longer. The results of the study concluded that positive thinkers’ motivation to live is a factor in longevity. The respondents had been asked to choose from three pairs of adjectives to describe their lives. Those who answered full, hopeful and worthy were deemed to have the greater will to live and survived longer than those that answered empty, hopeless and worthless. “Will to live appeared to be a partial mediator but it didn’t completely explain why the people with positive views lived longer. So there must be other things involved. One likely candidate is how people respond to stress. Older people with a negative view of aging show higher levels of stress” (Levy quoted in Duenwald 2002). Another study performed at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota also linked optimism to longevity. A psychiatrist by the name of Dr. Toshihiko Maruta reviewed more than 800 psychological profiles and classified 197 of them as pessimistic in the 1960s. When he checked to see how long they had lived, he found that pessimists had a 19 percent greater than average risk for death (Duenwald 2002). Other studies have made clinical connections between longevity and the amount of control people feel they have over their lives. Longevity is also linked to how one reacts to their environment and people who are depressed, hostile or anxious are unlikely to live as long as others. Dr. Carolyn Aldwin, a professor of human and community development at the University of California at Davis, found that those who seemed to be relatively stable emotionally lived longer. “You’re better off if you are less likely to go to extremes emotionally, if you keep on an even keel and don’t let yourself get too upset” (Aldwin quoted in Duenwald 2002). Dr. Friedman was unsure whether the will to live alone could offer any concrete explanations when longevity is affected by an assortment of health choices. Dr. Friedman has observed the health and longevity of a group of subjects who were originally recruited in 1921 for the studies of psychology and intelligence conducted by Dr. Lewis Terman of Stanford. These studies suggest that people who engage in healthy activities can have a big impact on mortality risk over time (Duenwald 2002). Scientific studies and research over many years have shown that positive personality trait factors such as an optimistic attitude and outlook on life in general influence health and longevity at least as much as anything else; typically, personality can factor in even more than diet, exercise, genetics or whether or not a person smokes. Research has also shown that using attitude bolstering techniques speeds healing and improves a patients’ sense of well-being. Despite increasing scientific validation that a person’s state of mind and general feeling of stability, manifested by their personality, has healing power and increases longevity, most Western medical practices fail to acknowledge or to incorporate this dimension of healing treatment. Addressing the personality traits of a patient seems to be the last resort many times when diagnosing a condition. Much of modern medicine deals with trying to rid a person of the symptom of a health problem instead of finding the root of the problem. As has been shown, positive and stable personalities lead to, on average, longer and healthier lives whereas the opposite is just as true. But the medical community can hardly tell a person exactly how optimistic they need to feel every day or prescribe a pill that gives meaning and purpose to one’s life therefore improving their personality traits. The doctor can prescribe proper diet and exercise as it is measurable but definitely not the entire account regarding what it takes to maintain good health. References Bouchez, C. (27 June 2005). “Does Personality Affect Your Health?” WebMD [online]. Retrieved 16 March 2006 from Duenwald M. (19 November 2002). Power of positive thinking extends, it seems, to aging. New York Times 19 : F1 (col. 1). Friedman, H.S. (1993). “Interpersonal expectations and the Maintenance of Health.” Interpersonal Expectations: Theory, Research and Applications. Studies in Emotion and Social Interaction. P. Blanck (Ed.). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, pp. 179-193. Schwartz, J.E.; Friedman, H.S.; Tucker, J.S. and Tomlinson-Keasey, C. (September 1995). “Sociodemographic and Psychosocial Factors in Childhood as Predictors of Adult Mortality.” American Journal of Public Health. Vol. 85, N. 9, pp. 1237-45. Read More